


bring me the night

by yespeon



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, for "I'm With You - A Terraqua Fanzine", sometimes you gotta be sad and then laugh to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 12:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22850047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yespeon/pseuds/yespeon
Summary: She couldn't close her eyes, because every time she did she returned to that darkness, where the only lights were beady golden eyes peering menacingly at her from the inky blackness of eternal night. But maybe someone else's light could guide her back to reality, even if he didn't think it could.
Relationships: Aqua/Terra (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43
Collections: I'm With You - A Terraqua Fanzine





	bring me the night

Aqua felt as though she had tried every remedy for insomnia. Casting sleep on herself had proven disastrous, resulting in a near three-day long miniature coma that had sent Ventus into a panic, and the potion given to her by Scrooge had only given her a case of the hiccups instead (which did provide some much needed laughter for herself, Terra, and Ven for the first time in twelve years, so she couldn't fault the old duck for that.)

She found lying in bed, tossing and turning back and forth throughout the night to be unproductive (even if she, Terra, and Ven hadn't aged, she still felt like she had lost time, that there wasn't a moment of this second chance at living to waste.) Instead she always chose to let her mind wander as her feet carried her somewhere, anywhere— a habit she couldn't break after twelve years, even if she felt every single one of her joints ache and her eyelids heavy with the threat of sleep.

She couldn't close her eyes, because every time she did she returned to that darkness, where the only lights were beady golden eyes peering menacingly at her from the inky blackness of eternal night.

One of her late night meanderings had brought her to a corner of the library that she had largely ignored— books on potion and elixir crafting and other types of brews. The Master had made the three of them focus on healing magic rather than synthesizing— moogles did it better and more efficiently. Still, it had been something ( _anything_ ) to read to keep the nightmares at bay, and flipping to some later pages had led her to brews created from flowers— lavender, chamomile, jasmine, chrysanthemums. Herbs and flowers and scented oils all meant to induce sleep and reduce anxiety— things she had never placed much stock in when she had once believed Curaga was a single-spell solution for all ailments.

Except now her tired legs carried her to the garden as she balanced a basket full of flower seed packets precariously in her arms, her eyes still too used to the darkness to need to conjure any light. Although she soon found herself wishing that maybe she should have, when sudden movement caused her to lose focus and her shins collided with some ceramic pots.

Terra jolted upward as Aqua threw out an arm to regain her balance, and she only needed to glance down at him to see that the same weariness in her eyes was reflected in his own. 

"Aqua! You okay?" He asked as he finally found his voice, reaching out a hand to help her which she readily took as she gingerly sat down in the grass next to him. 

"Yes," Aqua laughed lightly, gently placing the basket on the ground in front of her, "I just wasn't paying attention," no, if it had been that she couldn't see what was in front of her that would have been a good thing. It would have meant her eyes finally adjusted. Terra seemed to realize this too, guilt and tension hanging thick in the air like a fog. She cleared her throat, trying to peer over his shoulder at what he was (rather obviously) trying to shield from her. “What are you doing up this late?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Before Xehanort, before wars and Heartless and guardians of light, the silence between them had always been warm and comfortable. It wasn’t marred by anxiety, it was just a simple sense of being with one another, a moment where words were never needed. Ever since their return home though, it had been pin-pricked by icy tension, one so cold that soft smiles with a summer’s glow or heat rising with a blush could only melt for the briefest of seconds.

The silence was no longer natural, but a deliberate avoidance on each of their halves— Aqua knew at least that there was much to still be said, to apologize for, (to confess, maybe), but neither of them wanted to be the first to do so. 

Fighting thousands of heartless, facing against their greatest enemies was one thing— having a conversation about feelings that ran deeply was terrifying. Aqua’s thumb brushed the inside of her palm, normally where her wayfinder would be when she needed its presence when lost in the darkness, but now it rested atop the summit with their Master’s keyblade. She knew if one of them was boldly unafraid of leaping into the unknown… it was her.

So she steeled her breath to speak, to ask Terra if he was actually alright, to tell him for the umpteenth time that nothing was his fault and hope something productive would come out of the conversation this time, but as she sucked in air between her teeth, Terra cleared his throat.

“So… you can’t sleep again, can you?”

Aqua turned her sunken, tired eyes on him with a mixture of surprise and guilt, wondering how long it had been since he had noticed. She pursed her lips together for a moment, hesitant to give a truthful answer, but dodging questions and providing half-truths was what had enabled them to play right in Xehanort’s hands. “No. Sorry if I woke you,” she said, offering a weak apologetic smile.

Terra exhaled a sigh and looked up at the starry sky. “Don’t worry. I haven’t been able to either— I usually stay in my room.”

Aqua let her shoulders relax as some of the guilt washed away, moving to grab a shovel and move the peat soil aside to plant some lavender seeds. “Hm, I thought you were sound asleep this whole time.”

Terra handed her a spading fork. “Nope, that’s just Ven.” A small smile crossed his lips as he used a spade to continue tending to the tiny flower blossoms of his own that he had been working on. “I mean, I don’t blame you, if I did ever sneak out when we were kids it was to train. You would’ve heard me.”

Both of their gazes connected for just a moment (making Aqua’s heart flutter when this happened, as it always did for years) before the two erupted into laughter, memories of a simpler time bubbling to the surface. “Just like that time when the Master caught us sneaking out to try out bladecharge before we were ready to learn it.”

“He was so angry about that one,” Terra glanced back up at the summit, his smile fading from his eyes, “something about not wielding power responsibly.” 

The tension returned to the air once again, but this time Aqua refused to let it linger. “Hey, if I remember correctly, that had been my idea.” She said with finality, her tone laced with that quiet pity and sympathy of a ‘none of this was your fault’, perhaps the thousandth way of saying it since they had returned home. 

He paused for a moment, as if he was going to argue the point with her, but instead he averted his gaze, and whether it was out of shame or another reason entirely Aqua couldn’t quite tell in the darkness of night. Instead, he turned his attention back to gardening. “I think both of us would be in trouble for gardening out so late as well.”

The change of subject— while sidestepping a conversation they needed to have— wasn’t entirely unwelcome. “I don’t know, maybe we would have been praised for being so proactive about our chores,” Aqua murmured with a light laugh as she covered up her row of seeds, smoothing the dirt with the trowel. “Why are you gardening, anyway?” She smirked a little as he attempted to shield her from the flowers she had already seen earlier.

“I— well— I thought the castle could use some color…” Terra stammered, and it wasn’t entirely out of line with what the three of them had been up to since returning. Home was comforting and peaceful, but the untouched rooms from before their hopes and dreams had gone up in smoke were reminders of all that had come to pass and the future that never would. Countless hours had been spent redecorating-- the worst of it all involving the Master’s cluttered study, of which Aqua had only set foot in so far.

“Oh? They’re not for anyone? You’re not anyone’s secret admirer at the market?” Her teasing him slipped out as easily as it would have a decade ago, when she would poke and prod him about potential off-world crushes, mostly to see him get flustered but also for her own… self-interest, she later realized when she was alone in the darkness with nothing but her thoughts and feelings.

“Well…” Terra scratched the back of his head, a rosy flush dusting his cheeks that was hidden by the shadows of night, “maybe they could be for you, when they’re done growing.”

“For me?” Aqua tilted her head to the side, taking a moment to process his words until they hit her like a freight train.

Oh. _Oh._

She hadn't been expecting such a direct answer, or maybe she should have given what he said upon their reunion (the thought of being his guiding light was something so intimate and dear to her that it brought a blush to her cheeks at the mere thought of it) but his teasing grin caused her to dart her gaze to the side and laugh.

"Okay, how long have you been waiting to use that line?" Aqua said, failing to keep the amusement out of her voice. The mixture of guilt and anguish from moments earlier still lingered in the air, but it had softened into something lighter, like a wound that was beginning to heal. It would take time. Time that they now could spend together.

Laughter crept its way out of Terra as well, who looked a bit sheepish at how bold he was. "Not as long as you'd think." 

Aqua did her best to stifle her remaining giggles. "Hm, it's not the corniest thing you've ever said, but I liked it. I'll gladly accept a bouquet when these are fully grown," she said as she ran a thumb over one of the sprouts that was just beginning to peek up from underneath the soil. 

There were plenty of things neither of them were ready to talk about, at least not fully— even if she were ready to fully recount the horrors of what she had experienced in the Realm of Darkness to Terra she wasn't sure if he would collapse underneath the weight of the guilt he'd feel from technically being the one responsible for putting her there, and the same could likely be said for him confronting all he had done as part of the Dark Guardian.

Yet she knew, at this moment with the stars glittering above and the two of them laughing peacefully in a garden, that this was the moment to talk about each other. They had always danced around each other like opponents in an evenly matched fight, and although they had quite literally met each other on the battlefield several times, confronting feelings neither of them dared to utter aloud was something else entirely. 

"I mean it, Terra," Aqua said, her voice now level and serious, "I wouldn't mind... if we talked about us."

Terra paused for a moment and stared hard at the ground, his fingers gripping at the grass and earth beneath him. “I don’t know if I deserve you.”

That sentence alone was enough for Aqua to close the gap between them and place her hand on top of Terra’s firmly, enough to cause him to look up and meet her gaze which was far, far too close. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think that,” she said, her voice shaking and barely above a whisper.

“It’s hard not to,” Terra murmured, his dark blue eyes swimming with the pain of a decade past, of all the mistakes he had made and ones he feared he would make again. 

She understood that fear, the uncertainty of the future and all that it would bring— but here, in this moment, Aqua found that she was unafraid of anything that would be.

“Then don’t think at all.” Her voice was even as she brought her hand to Terra’s cheek, and before she could second guess herself or let either of them spiral into the darknesses of their pasts, she closed the gap between them, her lips brushing against his. Although the two of them were trained for battle and blades clashing harshly against one another’s, the kiss was soft and gentler than she could ever have expected, as she melted further into it when Terra tilted his head, his hands encircling around her waist.

Terra smiled into it, breaking the kiss to laugh. “You know, I think most would say that’s easy enough for me to do.” His laughter was hushed by Aqua placing a finger to his lips, although an undignified snort of a giggle managed to escape her.

“Terra! I’m trying to say positive things.”

“I know, I know,” he said, pulling her into his arms as she nestled her head underneath his chin, her back against his chest as the two of them watched the warm glow of the sun begin to rise in the far-off mountain valleys. “And I’m trying to make a joke.”

There was still a ways to go in terms of healing, in coming to terms with all that had happened and being able to voice fears and ghosts of the past aloud, but being able to face their failings with a smile was a good first start. Aqua glanced back at the planted lavender, deciding that for the time being she no longer needed it, as she struggled to fight off heavy eyelids in the warmth and comfort of Terra’s arms.

They would face the dawn of a second chance at living together.

**Author's Note:**

> for the I'm With You fanzine-- thank you all, especially Jullika and Thali, for allowing me to be a part of this amazing project, and thank you to VintageAerith for organizing the zine's production! I learned so much participating in this project. Let's do this again sometime!


End file.
